The size of starfleet

[Doomriser]

Yeah, their real lack in crews are in _trained_ crews. Why else is it always the same less than 10 officers per series who are sent on the landing, espionage, sabotage, infiltration, suicide, hacking, etc... missions? Seems that everyone else is just ballast.

[Stravo]

I don't think that lack of personnel is the problem with SF. Remember that in BoBW they were able to re-commission several ships, including an old Constitution class ship. This indicates that they have space-worthy personnel ready to be called up in a moment's notice. I think that their industrial capacity is very weak, and that is the limiting factor on their fleet strength--not a lack of personnel.

But if you really look at it HOW can they crew 3,000 (considered by many trekkers to be a very low figure) starships? Again not counting the facilities, starbases, science labs, outposts....it just isn't possible to have that many officers, let alone crewmen. I think that their lack of fleet strength IS the personnel shortage. You can build hundreds of starships but if you don't have the crew....

[Stravo]

The loss of 11,000 personnel at Wolf 359 was considered to be a major defeat.

and considering some of the ships used they may have included fresh graduates of new recrutes

It wouldn't be the first time Star Fleet has had to press CADETS into service....best example...Wrath of Khan a trainee ship (Obsolete) with Trainees is sent to investigate something wrong at a super secret vital Star Fleet facility.

[Master of Ossus]

Another example would be the infamous "Red Squad."

The idea that even very skilled cadets would form the primary support for a coup attempt is laughable. Where was the rest of SF at that time, out hunting tribbles?

[Crossover_Maniac]

Someone posted here that the Star Trek writers said the fleet size was 8000. If the writers said its 8000, it's 8000 until they say otherwise.

[Mr Bean]

The ST Writters are not Cannon when its not in a Show, Or in a Script and considering its a writer who helped all of two epsoides


And that person was John Clark
Consider your source...

[Stravo]

Someone posted here that the Star Trek writers said the fleet size was 8000. If the writers said its 8000, it's 8000 until they say otherwise.

So you think that the Federation currently has 3.2 Million men under arms ON THEIR STARSHIPS ALONE. Not including starbases, facilities, etc??

I have a VERY hard time beliveing a cannon figure that makes no sense. Saying that the Galactic empire has a million worlds under their control is believable because it is a GALACTIC empire. Saying that starfleet has more than 3 million men in uniform streches credibilty when one does the simple math...remember ALL Officers MUST go to Starfleet Academy and some have even gone so far as to say that some episodes suggest ALL Starfleet personnel go to the academy. What is the size of the graduating class every year : 500,000?!

[Mr Bean]

Stravo see the above post but prehaps this will clear it up


ST has at LEAST 8000 ships under arms thats what the writers say-John Clark

Never manged to get a quote out of him before he got banned

[Master of Ossus]

Stravo see the above post but prehaps this will clear it up


ST has at LEAST 8000 ships under arms thats what the writers say-John Clark

Never manged to get a quote out of him before he got banned

Hmmm.... I wonder why that was. Perhaps it was because he was a lying SOB. I don't think that anything he says should be taken as the truth. Consider your sources.

BTW, I still don't think that personnel is the problem with SF. They replace all of the redshirts that die instantly, and they never have problems crewing their ships. I think that the problem is their laughably small industrial abilities. Remember that it takes YEARS to build a single GCS, and that such a ship takes up a very large portion of their facilities.

[Stravo]

Stravo see the above post but prehaps this will clear it up


ST has at LEAST 8000 ships under arms thats what the writers say-John Clark

Never manged to get a quote out of him before he got banned

Hmmm.... I wonder why that was. Perhaps it was because he was a lying SOB. I don't think that anything he says should be taken as the truth. Consider your sources.

BTW, I still don't think that personnel is the problem with SF. They replace all of the redshirts that die instantly, and they never have problems crewing their ships. I think that the problem is their laughably small industrial abilities. Remember that it takes YEARS to build a single GCS, and that such a ship takes up a very large portion of their facilities.

Master of Ossus, I agree that their industrial potential is pathetic...but the illustrious B&B have wriggled their way out of such trivial things as canon so many times before...Example. In the Dominion war we saw wings of Galaxy class starships, we even saw several get blown up (ie. Invasion of Chintaka system) but BY CANON there were only 6 galaxy class ships in service with another six in storage....if it takes YEARS to build a GCS, where did the "wings" of galaxy class ships come from??? Thus B&B's method of wiping their asses with canon. (eg SEE ENTIRE SEASON OF ENTERPRISE)

It is ALOT harder to argue against cold hard numbers than the LAUGHABLE state of the ST canon Thanks to the wonderboys B&B.

[Master of Ossus]

But, you see the problem in your argument is that if the personnel of SF is the limiting factor and you bring up the number of GCS ships in SF to prove that, then where did they get the personnel for the GCS? GCS require far more crew members than do smaller ships. It also does not explain why everyone is always talking about SHIPS in SF, rather than people. If people are more important than your ships, you should be more worried about them, but in ST we clearly see that everyone is talking about people. Bashir talks about the mauling one fleet took when it lost 98 ships of 112. Sisko is constantly making ship number estimates, instead of crew counts (there is no way that in Sacrifice of Angels he was outnumbered two to one in terms of crew), and remember that in BoBW Shelby told us that SF would be able to repair its losses (of the 39 ships at Wolf 359) in less than a year, instead of talking about where they were going to get the replacement crews.

They are also always getting replacement personnel from somewhere, but the ships that they have take far longer to replace. This is indicative of a group in which there is a waiting list of people to transfer while there is a limited number of openings, and is incomprehensible unless we believe that the number of personnel is not as limited as the number of ships.

[TheDarkling]

We are told SF is under going a manpower shortage during the Dominion war by a Romulan senator (Ref In he Pale Moonlight).

[Stravo]

But, you see the problem in your argument is that if the personnel of SF is the limiting factor and you bring up the number of GCS ships in SF to prove that, then where did they get the personnel for the GCS? GCS require far more crew members than do smaller ships.

I didn't bring up the number of GCS to shore up my personnel theroy, but to prove that B&B could care less about canon when canon clearly states that there are a limited number of GCS. They created wings of GCS because they probably thought it looked cool. Not careing a whit of what it meant in terms of numbers. Does anyone really care that teh Federation simply cannot support the thousands of ships postulated - NO - people just care about the number of ships because big fleets look kewl on screen.

__________________________________________________________________

It also does not explain why everyone is always talking about SHIPS in SF, rather than people. If people are more important than your ships, you should be more worried about them, but in ST we clearly see that everyone is talking about people. Bashir talks about the mauling one fleet took when it lost 98 ships of 112. Sisko is constantly making ship number estimates, instead of crew counts (there is no way that in Sacrifice of Angels he was outnumbered two to one in terms of crew), and remember that in BoBW Shelby told us that SF would be able to repair its losses (of the 39 ships at Wolf 359) in less than a year, instead of talking about where they were going to get the replacement crews.



In OS, Kirk and others always spoke about crew - during the M-5 incident he screamed at Daytrom that over 800 men and women had been killed by M-5. When the M-5 blows up an orecarrier, McCoy says that they were lucky that it was unmanned.

Something has obvioulsy changed between OS and TNG era, perhaps people don';t matter as much. Otheriwse how do you seriously account for the number of crew it would take to man an 8000 ship fleet. Do you really think that starfleet has millions of people in uniform? The burning question for me is where are they getting the people? Its easy to explain how Stardestroyer fleets are manned - Millions of worlds under Imperial rule, Quitillions of people. But the Federation does not have that kind of population base.

_________________________________________________________________

They are also always getting replacement personnel from somewhere, but the ships that they have take far longer to replace. This is indicative of a group in which there is a waiting list of people to transfer while there is a limited number of openings, and is incomprehensible unless we believe that the number of personnel is not as limited as the number of ships.

OR there simply aren't that many starships as we think.

[Stravo]

Sorry Master of Ossus, I kind of butchered the quotes on that last post and the edit button doesn't seem to appear on this thread. Hope it makes sense.

[Master of Ossus]

I agree. SF does not have that many ships, but the limiting factor appears to be their industrial capability and not their ability to obtain personnel. Something obviously has changed since TOS, when Kirk was worried about people. The Federation has obviously gained more people, proportionatly, while their industrial capacity remained weak. This is actually supported by canon evidence. Remember that Kirk helped launch the Enterprise-A from Spacedock, in Earth Orbit. There do not appear to be that many more industrial complexes constructed by the time of TNG and DS9, in fact, the Enterprise-D was launched from the same spacedock that the Enterprise-A was launched from. This indicates that SF's industrial capacity has not grown significantly. We also know that MANY more worlds have joined the Federation, so its population base is probably far greater. This supports all of my arguments. The Federation fleet is small, and the limiting factor is its industry, during TNG, DS9, and Voyager era.

[Stravo]

I agree. SF does not have that many ships, but the limiting factor appears to be their industrial capability and not their ability to obtain personnel. Something obviously has changed since TOS, when Kirk was worried about people. The Federation has obviously gained more people, proportionatly, while their industrial capacity remained weak. This is actually supported by canon evidence. Remember that Kirk helped launch the Enterprise-A from Spacedock, in Earth Orbit. There do not appear to be that many more industrial complexes constructed by the time of TNG and DS9, in fact, the Enterprise-D was launched from the same spacedock that the Enterprise-A was launched from. This indicates that SF's industrial capacity has not grown significantly. We also know that MANY more worlds have joined the Federation, so its population base is probably far greater. This supports all of my arguments. The Federation fleet is small, and the limiting factor is its industry, during TNG, DS9, and Voyager era.

I see that we agree in the sense you see it as more of an industrial limitation, which I do agree with, however this industrial weakness is rotuinely circumvented by B&B when you see all the ships up on screen. I am adding that as a FURTHER limitation to the weak industrial base is the impossibility that the Federation can support the millions of crew that are required for the ships. I am aware that you don't see the limitation BECAUSE of the appearance of the ships on screen thus proving that they do indeed have the required crews. My point is that there does not seem to be a reasonable way in that they can have millions of crewmen, especially officers, since all are coming from a single institution.

I guess what I am saying in my own way is that I have to dispute the appearance of so mnay ships because I simply do not believe that the Federation has the requisite population base, ESPECIALLY if one looks at Starfleet academy as a choke point for the upper level of number of officers available.

[Typhonis 1]

This will keep biting them on the arse .They ,the Federation,need to take warfare more seriously .They study Sun-Tzu and Washington yet have forgoten there advice Sun=tzu Warfare is a serious business of the state . If you seek to avoid bloodshed sweat in peace Washington If you seek peace prepare for war.

[Stravo]

This will keep biting them on the arse .They ,the Federation,need to take warfare more seriously .They study Sun-Tzu and Washington yet have forgoten there advice Sun=tzu Warfare is a serious business of the state . If you seek to avoid bloodshed sweat in peace Washington If you seek peace prepare for war.

Remember though, according to Gene Roddenberry, humanity is a better more evolved animal so war is a disatsteful business that we must be FORCED into. To actively prepare for war goes against everything Gene belived thus the sad state of affairs trekkies find themselves in when confronting a fully militarized galactic empire....

[Master of Ossus]

I know, they should not have that many ships, but they do. We can see that onscreen. So we must accept that their industrial capacity is weak, but their personnel numbers are okay. Maybe they have another academy, somewhere?

[Isolder74]

I know, they should not have that many ships, but they do. We can see that onscreen. So we must accept that their industrial capacity is weak, but their personnel numbers are okay. Maybe they have another academy, somewhere?

Not that I know of. except for the Starbases the only shipyard they have is Utopia Plantia Shipyard

[Dark Primus]

I know, they should not have that many ships, but they do. We can see that onscreen. So we must accept that their industrial capacity is weak, but their personnel numbers are okay. Maybe they have another academy, somewhere?

Not that I know of. except for the Starbases the only shipyard they have is Utopia Plantia Shipyard

You are forgetting Antares shipyards, were they built the Defiant. Not to mention San Fransisco and the Mckinely station.
San Fransisco and Mckinely stations might only be one construction bay total. At least there are two known large facilities, Utopia and Antares.

[Vympel]

Is Antares a big facility though? What other ship types were built there (if they're canon classes I'll know their size). If the Defiant was the only ship constructed there, we can assume 1- its a small facility and 2- it might be an R&D facility alone. We know that the Feds started serial production of the Defiant-class; but its an open question whether they were all built at Antares or Utopia Planitia, Earth Station Mckinley etc.

Again, other ship types and size would establish Antares as a big facility (heheh by Fed standards anyway).

Of course my knowledge is wanting so if any trekkie knows this like the back of his hand feel free to school me.

[Master of Ossus]

Antares only builds smaller ships, according to everything I've seen. I don't think it adds significantly to their industrial capability (it doesn't raise their ability to manufacture by orders of magnitude). I know that we have not heard references to other academies, but SF MIGHT have other academies that we never hear or see. I know that it is a terrible argument, but I don't think that what we see on camera can be explained in any other way. They simply have more officers than their academy in San Francisco can produce. This is inconsistent. We must believe that there is another academy, and perhaps several others, or we must assume that the visual evidence is wrong (there might be another explanation, if anyone else would like to field another one. Those are the ones I can see immediately.). We cannot assume that the visual evidence is wrong. SF MUST have another academy that we never see or hear about.

I also think that SF's industrial capacity is laughable, and that their personnel training facilities are insignificant next to those of the Empire. I just, still, have not seen anything to indicate that their personnel numbers are the limiting factors for their fleet size. It still looks like it is their industry.

[Typhonis 1]

Actually we have never SEEN the size of a class from the Academy .From the example of West Point they curently have about 4000 cadets with aprox 900 graduating could SFA be much larger??I tthink so they may also have ROTC programs in place thougfh that isn likely given they are pacifist.

[Isolder74]

Actually we have never SEEN the size of a class from the Academy .From the example of West Point they curently have about 4000 cadets with aprox 900 graduating could SFA be much larger??I tthink so they may also have ROTC programs in place thougfh that isn likely given they are pacifist.

And West point is not the United States only Academy. We have The Citidal, the US Naval Acadamy, the Air Force Academy, and the various branches of these institusions.